Under The Broken Sky
by Wide Spread Panic
Summary: When a few Decepticon hatchlings get lost in the great big world, they make one human's life a living hell. Especially when the least capable Seeker in the Decepticon army is sent to retrieve their wayward hatchlings.
1. Chapter 1

_Author's notes: Just a little idea that popped into my head while I was watching Transformers: Rise of the Fallen again. I just couldn't help but be fascinated by Starscream's little hatchlings. The little guys were so ugly-adorable and I remember Megatron having a barrel full of them in Dark of the Moon… but what happened to the rest of them? Surely they all didn't die. Thus, this little bit of nonsense and a new OC for me to torment with unpredictable, giant alien mechs- yay._

_A/N: Minor edits._

* * *

><p>Under the Broken Sky<p>

The snow had started sometime in the night. It had become almost a living thing, stealthily moving over the mountains and blanketing everything. As pretty as it was, Nicole Adams couldn't help but feel mildly resentful. This time of the year, most of the trees had already lost their foliage and that meant that the highway down the hill was very noticeable. It was a fact that annoyed her since she spent most of the year enjoying her seclusion and privacy. So many cars so close ruined the illusion for her.

She pulled on a thick jacket and stepped out onto her front porch, huddling inside the warm material as her breath puffed out in pale clouds. She'd have to carry wood in for a fire before it got dark, but she certainly didn't feel like tackling that job before her morning coffee. Her house was small; a tiny two bedroom with one bath, but the house wasn't why her late grandfather had originally bought the place for her.

No, while her house wasn't impressive in any sense, it was its accoutrements that had won him-and her- over. It had come with more than a fair bit of acreage and the majority of it had been fenced in with thick wooden posts and metal wire. The wooded land inside the fencing had also come with a barn that had been diligently cared for over the years and whose roof had been painted black with red words: 'Come See Rock City'- she'd been to Rock City only once in her life. While the rock gardens had been fanciful in a fashion, she'd been old enough to view the entire affair as a bit hokey rather than with any childlike wonder. She'd climbed all the way to the top of Lookout Mountain, enticed by signs that had promised she'd be able to see seven states at once. At the top it had been so foggy she hadn't even been able to see one state. An elderly woman in a wide-brimmed sunhat with plastic flowers glued to it had sadly remarked that such was the case more often than not- and it had also come with Mr. Thompson.

He was the only neighbor she had for miles aside from the highway that wound up the mountainside on the far side of her property. When she'd moved in, she'd been constantly amazed at the old man whose property had mainly occupied the side of the mountain her property laid in the valley of. Mostly because of the fact that his cows and horses somehow didn't roll down the steep incline while sleeping.

Mr. Thompson had seemed to shrink over the years before her eyes; most markedly after his wife had passed away. He was a good neighbor though, he rarely ever bothered her. And that was all she wanted- to be left alone.

Looking out across her yard at the horses huddling together near her barn, she sighed. If she didn't go let them in, her neighbor would call to ask if he could and he'd happily trudge across through the snow to do it. She picked up the phone and dialed his number from memory. He picked up on the third ring.

"Hi, Mr. Thompson. It's Nicky. I'm going to let your horses into the barn." She paused listening as he told her it was snowing, mumbling vague agreement as he commented on the snow being nothing like it had been when he was young- it had been colder snow. Real snow. She smiled to herself as she listened to him talk mostly to himself. "Okay, Mr. Thompson. I'm going to go put the horses in the barn." She said as he reluctantly hung up.

She didn't even mind letting him put his horses in her lot this time of year to graze. Though she'd tried in vain to explain to him that he didn't have to pay her to let him keep the horses in her lot- hell, it saved her from having to mow it herself. But the old guy was proud and insisting seemed as though it would only wound him, so she grudgingly accepted his fifty dollars a month for tolerating the animals.

There were five of them standing around as she made her way over to the barn. The snow had only been falling for hours, but already a few inches had accumulated and she knew it'd get worse. This high up, the snow and ice liked to stick around a while like a bad guest who's down on his luck. It wasn't only the weather that made her wary though, she'd never really dealt with large animals before she'd moved there.

Unfortunately the horses seemed fully aware of her trepidation. A few tossed their heads, their breath clouding up from their flared nostrils.

"Hey, there." She soothed as she edged closer to the closed door the animals were crowding. As often as they'd done this particular song and dance over the years, she would have thought that the big brutes would back up for her. But no, that would have been too easy. They would stand there and mill around, making her walk right in the middle of them to open the door. She suspected that for all her supposedly superior intellect, they were not only aware of her fear, but took a secret delight in it. "It would kill you to move over, wouldn't it?" She mumbled brightly, adopting the baby-talk tone of people everywhere when dealing with animals they were uncertain of.

She got the door pushed open and the horses obligingly went inside out of the snow without trampling her. She still eyed them suspiciously though as she followed them inside and twisted the foam faucet cover off one of the three water lines that crisscrossed her property. The horses watched her with what seemed to her as equal distrust as she ran a hose from the faucet to the trough that lined one side of the barn.

Thank goodness the pipes weren't frozen yet, she thought in relief as the faucet sluggishly yielded up water. Hauling buckets from the house down here would take hours and being as clumsy as she was, she was fairly certain would have involved her being soaking wet and the horses still waiting on water.

A soft snorting, made her stiffen. One of the horses whinnied nervously and she glanced back. The horses were backing up away from the deeper recesses of the barn. Another of the animals complained loudly, pawing the dirt floor and she squinted into the dark.

There were no overhead lights in the barn, and the loft didn't illuminate the back corners that had been given over to storage at all. While the entire barn smelled vaguely of rotten hay and musty animals, that corner also carried the subtle metallic reek of rust. Scrap metal, old tools, pipe, and other odds and ends had been accumulated by the property's previous owners and they'd left their garbage when they'd moved out. On the basis that clutter really didn't eat much and was more than happy to breed quietly in the dark, she'd left it as is.

She frowned into that dark mass of twisted metal and general junk. Nothing about the mess had ever bothered the horses before- a few two-by-fours had been nailed across that area to form an impromptu barrier to keep the big animals away from the scrap and potentially hurting themselves on any sharp edges.

"What?" She asked the horses, but the big animals only snorted at her. "There a raccoon or something in here?" She made a face and dug around on one of the shelves she'd designated as her toolbox. In addition to one hammer, a screwdriver, and various odds and ends she'd found and thought might potentially be useful if only she could figure out what they were, was a flashlight.

She fiddled with the switch, shaking it when the bulb refused to come on until it reluctantly produced a thin, wavering beam that she aimed into the scrap metal. Something moved under a pile of sheet metal and a soft hissing made her tense. Ruddy, copper colored eyeshine flashed for a moment as whatever it was scurried into a darker corner.

Whatever it was hissed- which narrowed her visitor down to either a possum or a cat. She prayed it was the latter. Those were the only two animals she was positive hissed aside from snakes that were hibernating through the cold somewhere.

Please, be a cat, she thought as she crouched and aimed the light at where she thought the critter had migrated to. "Here, kitty, kitty. Come on, baby." She crooned into the shadows trying to ignore the horses snorting and pawing at her back just waiting to stomp on her if she made a wrong move.

A second set of eyeshine farther to her left and yellower than the first startled her. A low chittering sound that reminded her of cicadas came from somewhere in the vicinity of a stack of dry-rotted pipe. She involuntarily scooted back, putting serious thought in going and grabbing that hammer. "Nice kitties. Come see Aunt Nicky." She infused her voice with as much syrupy sweetness as she could muster. And low chirping answered her words. The sounds were beginning to make her feel highly encouraged to just leave the horses to deal with whatever was occupying the scrap heap. She was at a complete loss as to attaching the varied sounds to any particular animal she knew of. "Here kitties," she said weakly.

Something moved.

She fumbled with and almost dropped the flashlight as … _something_ edged closer, chattering at her. She turned the beam on it and it hissed, darting back into cover, but the glimpse she caught of it shook her. That hadn't been fur.

And it sure as _hell _wasn't a damn kitty cat. The light had reflected off it like, well, metal. She'd gotten the impression of a small, hunched form with a round, disturbingly human face. She could feel her heart pounding in her chest as she almost dropped the flashlight again, because her hands were shaking.

She swallowed as one of the things moved and chirped in the darkness. An answering chirp sounded, followed by a sharp warble of sound.

The devil with grabbing the hammer- she wanted to run back up to the house and grab the shotgun. She needed-

One of the little things suddenly appeared, but she kept the flashlight trained on the ground this time to not frighten it off again. In the dim light, she could see the thing was about the size of a toddler. It also wasn't an animal, though it moved cautiously like one. For all the fact that it seemed to be metal, it moved with a disturbingly organic fluidness. Its small body was all sharp angles and she hadn't been mistaken; the face, while rudimentary and comprised of shifting planes of metal was human-like. The eyes were copper colored and glowed faintly. It moved on all fours until it was only feet from her.

Then it rose up on its back legs and tipped its head to one side. A warbling chatter escaped it and she thought the tone was inquisitive.

"Jesus." She mumbled as she stared at the little metal- _thing_. She was at a complete loss as to what the thing was, though the word robot flitted through her mind only to be dismissed. It was far too… alive to be a robot. It sure as hell didn't look like anything any person had ever built. She was damn sure of that.

"Jesus." She muttered again, twitching as another one slinked forward. An even smaller third member followed on the heels of the second one. The two newcomers huddled close to the first one and all three chirped softly. The last one sported four glowing red eyes to her shock.

Staring at the little monsters it was hard to decide if they were so ugly they were cute as opposed to just being ugly. That and the nagging sensation that she was still dreaming, but the wetness of melting snow seeping inexorably through her sneakers discounted that idea pretty quickly.

"What are you?" She whispered in wonder as she cautiously stretched out a hand. The one she was beginning to think of as the leader hissed, baring tiny but very sharp looking teeth. A pair of what might have been rudimentary wings flared on its back and its two companions hunched closer.

"Easy." She muttered as she snatched her hand back, none too eager to find out if they were carnivores or not the hard way. She happened to very much like her fingers, thank you very much. She settled back on her heels, trying to decide exactly why it was so important to coax the little devils out of the barn. She was reasonably, but not one-hundred percent sure they wouldn't eat the horses.

The leader was staring fixedly at the flashlight in her hand and making soft little sniffing noises. What might have been a rudimentary nose on his face twitched slightly. "You like the pretty flashlight?" She asked softly, earning her a mistrusting look.

She wiggled the flashlight and all three leaned backwards, chirping. Frowning she edged backward as well, dangling the flashlight close to the ground. The three eased forward with soft whirring sounds.

They were thin she noted and definitely pitiful looking, though she couldn't have said with any amount of satisfaction if the little guys looked normal for whatever they were or not. They were cute in an ugly way, she decided. Like a pug dog. So ugly they were cute.

She was so focused on the one that she jumped when she felt one of the other two bump her with its head. Her eyes widened slightly as the little four-eyed creature gripped her jacket and stood up, warbling at her. The other two answered it with pitiful mewling sounds of their own.

And she realized just how screwed she was.

As a child she'd constantly exasperated even her ever-patient grandparents by bringing home any and all the little, lost creatures she found. From puppies and kittens, to green snakes, lizards and beetles- anything that her childish mind had pityingly construed as being _lost_ had _absolutely _needed to go home with her. Even once, a baby bird she'd found on the outskirts of the woods near their house. She'd managed to sneak it in tucked securely inside the front of her coveralls and the little thing hadn't even so much as uttered a betraying cheep to give her away. She'd squirreled it away in her room for a whole day before her grandmother found it and took it away as being 'unsanitary and germ-ridden.'

The three… creatures were just too pitiful looking and small. She knew she was doomed even as she cautiously picked the four-eyed one up. It warbled softly in alarm, but was oddly tame to her touch and only flared out the little metal panels of its skin. The other two chirped and moved closer, chattering in protest at her.

It took some coaxing to manage to get all three in her arms. She felt like a child again, rushing through the snow back to her house with her odd little foundlings. There was no one left to fuss at her though and that was a sad thought. No matter how many years had passed since her grandparents had died, it hurt all the same. The elderly couple had raised her and no place had ever seemed like home after their loss. Her little place came close though on occasion.

One of her little foundlings purred, chewing on her jacket as she made her way onto the porch and juggled the three against her to their extreme displeasure if their sharp claws scrabbling against her had been any indication.

She managed to get inside without dropping them and carefully set them down on the linoleum floor of her laundry room.

Inside the house, the enticing scent of coffee was proof that there were still good things in the world. Coffee, as far as she was concerned, was a fundamentally good thing. As long as there was coffee, then the world could keep right along on its merry way. She didn't expect much out of life, she supposed.

A glance down at her three little… visitors though made her frown. She had the sense that only three cups of coffee with generous amounts of sugar and milk would give her the willpower to deal with them short of a nervous breakdown.

The three were looking around her laundry room with no small amount of curiosity. Inside, under the fluorescent lights, they only looked stranger still. They were huddled so close that they appeared to be one conglomeration of flexing, mobile metal with three craning necks and eight bright eyes.

The yellow-eyed one edged away from the other, head turning as it surveyed its new home. The other two joined it immediately. They seemed happy enough, she thought as they moved around and it gave her time to really examine them.

Two of them sported the tiny wing-like structures on their back. The only one that didn't was the four-eyed one. Their faces- indeed their entire bodies- were a complicated and intricate puzzle of overlapping metal pieces that all seemed capable of moving independently of each other. All three were the same silvery color and indeed, the only obvious differences were their eyes.

While humanoid standing on their back legs, the resemblance was only vague. Their feet and hands had sharp, little curving claws and standing they were about a foot tall. They were also damn heavy, she thought.

She frowned as the three found and clambered up into her dirty clothes. The wicker basket she used to hold the dirty clothes was low to the ground and wide. The little devils didn't seem at all put off by the fact that the clothes were dirty as they dug under the clothes.

"What are you little scrappers doing?"

Scrappers. She blinked down at the trio as they huddled inside the laundry basket. It was a good as term as any for them, she supposed. They'd been hiding out in the scrap pile at any rate. Now all three looked up at her with baleful expressions on their ugly little mugs as though feeling the weight of her stare. They looked suspicious to her, but then for all she knew she was only foisting human emotions on utterly dumb…. Whatever they were.

Alien.

The word sent a little shiver up her spine, unsettling in its appropriateness. They certainly didn't look like anything earthly. And they were so small. Like babies.

Her stomach heaved threateningly with that idea, because if these were the babies…

Where were mommy and daddy alien?

She swallowed back bile and flipped off the light. The trio instantly warbled in protest, the sharp sound reminiscent of nail on chalkboard. Gasping, she clapped her hands over her ears and jabbed her elbow at the switch until she managed to get the light back on. The caterwauling instantly stopped and all three of the little scrappers stared up at her with identical comical looks of betrayal.

"The light stays on." She agreed. "I knew that."

She backed out of the room, leaving the door open. The delicious aroma of coffee convincing her that leaving them alone to settle and pouring herself a cup was a very good decision.

Nicole had only just powered up her outdated monster of a computer, when something crashed to the floor in what sounded like the living room. She couldn't help the wince as she thought of the antique oak floors suffering those sharp little clawed feet of her new- what? Pets?

She frowned and pushed up from her desk and padded into the living room in her socked feet to see what was being destroyed. Not the TV, she pleaded silently.

"_Hey_-Hey!"

One of the scrappers looked up at her indignant tone, before digging its hooked little fingers deeper into the belly of her stereo and tearing bits of plastic and wiring loose. It squealed softly as it butted its face into the hole it had made and reappeared with a large D size battery in its mouth. Its two companions stiffened, uttering protesting warbles.

"Did my stereo really need to die?" She grumbled as she tried to decide how to get the new toy away from the little guy before he accidentally swallowed it. To her surprise he bit down and the corrosive liquid dribbled down his chin. Alarm flared through her, but the scrapper seemed perfectly content as he used his little clawed hands to wipe the liquid from his face like a cat, a thin silvery tongue snaking out to clean his claws.

"You eat batteries?" She asked flatly as she watched the other two try to drag the stereo away from the first. The three of them flared the overlapping metal panels on their bodies out, hissing at each other.

She slipped into the kitchen while they were preoccupied and dug around until she found a pack of double 'AA' batteries. Feeling triumphant, she tore open the pack and dumped them on the floor. The sharp clatter of the batteries on the wooden floor startled the scrappers into stillness.

One chattered and all three scrambled for the batteries. Tiny teeth crunched on the battery casings, the little guys giving little warbling squeals of pleasure as she watched. They didn't stop until every single battery was gone, and then they all looked expectantly up at her chirping.

"More?" She raised her eyebrows as they chattered at her. "I'm going to need to go shopping."

She sat down on the floor and all three rose up on their hind legs to eye her. They needed names, she thought.

* * *

><p><em>Author's note: Help Panic name the little monsters? <em>


	2. Ch2: Learning

_Author's notes: Just a little idea that popped into my head while I was watching Transformers: Rise of the Fallen again. I just couldn't help but be fascinated by Starscream's little hatchlings. The little guys were so ugly-adorable and I remember Megatron having a barrel full of them in Dark of the Moon… but what happened to the rest of them? Surely they all didn't die. Thus, this little bit of nonsense and a new OC for me to torment with unpredictable, giant alien mechs- yay._

_Shameless begging: I find myself unemployed at the moment and in need of money. I'm currently making transformers plushies and I would greatly appreciate any purchases. You can see the plushies on my deviantart page. Thanks for the help and reviews, folks._

_A/N: Minor edits made while I'm working on the next chapter._

* * *

><p>Ch 2: Learning<p>

She was being pursued.

The twisted metal remains of old cars rose up around her like the skeletal remains of old dinosaurs. She felt that there was a security light somewhere perched high above the dark maze she was trapped in, but no matter which way she turned it remained ethereal and far away, its glow casting eerie shadows that deepened and fluidly moved if she looked too closely at them.

The darkness had become a living thing in the junkyard maze, sprawling lazily over everything with an oppressive weight. The only sounds she could hear were her own panting breaths as she ran and the teasing sounds of her pursuers. Soft snarls and hisses seemed to lash out at her from every corner and hidden pathway. Sometimes she caught glimpses of huge things moving amid the scrap and quick flares of bright eyeshine. She had only a vague impression of size and teeth as her pursuers stalked her.

And she _was_ dimly aware that they were playing with her like a cat toyed with a mouse. Waiting for the kill until their plaything ceased to amuse them. She could only survive by escaping the junkyard, but it was endless- a labyrinth that seemed as alive as her nightmare pursuers, ever changing and warping.

She rounded a corner and screamed out. She scrambled to stop and landed on her ass, her neck craning as her mouth sagged open in terror. The monster straightened to loom high over the stacks of scrap and its glowing red eyes brightened and flared until she felt she was staring straight into hell-

Nicole sat up in bed with a gasp, sweat beading on her skin. She came face to face with four glowing red eyes. Screaming and flinging herself backward, she heard a sharp peal of noise as she fell off the side of the bed dragging most of the bedding with her in her frantic grab to not fall.

She thrashed in panic, tossing the tangled sheets off of herself and gasped.

The three little scrappers sat on her bare bed peering down at her with doubtful expressions. She pressed a hand to her chest as her heart threatened to hammer its way out through her ribcage.

"How did you get up there?" She finally panted and all three merely tilted their heads to the side as they regarded her. She shivered as she tried to desperately shrug off the last of the dream. It had been too real. Too lucid. "That's my bed." She managed, beginning to feel foolish.

The one with orange optics, that she was beginning to think of as the leader, stood up on the precarious edge of the bed to chirp at her. The other two remained crouched, but trilled at her like a couple of songbirds.

She picked herself up off the floor, her hip uttering a grievance where it had hit the floor. She eyed her alarm, wincing as it proclaimed it to be four a.m. and no matter how long she stared at it, it stubbornly refused to change its mind about what time it was.

She glowered at the scrappers who looked innocently up at her. She heaved a sigh and patted the nearest one and he ducked with a squeak. "You're lucky I don't believe you did that on purpose." She told them amiably.

Sighing, she gave the three a closer inspection. They still needed names- something she felt severely incompetent at doing. She glanced slowly from one to the other. They were all fairly similar in general, though each one had its own distinctive appearance. The smallest one was only inches shy of the other two's heights. He was also the one with four round, red optics and his armor was the darkest, nearly a charcoal color. Like coal.

"Coal," she said aloud, trying the name out and pointing at him.

Coal paused in his current activity, which just happened to be gumming the little blade-like wing on the back of the one with orange optics. Coal eyed her suspiciously before resuming his chewing. The one who was being chewed on ignored them both in favor on using his tiny little claws to dig at her bedding. Like the one with yellow optics, he was taller than Coal. In fact, the other two looked almost exactly the same aside from their optics and armor coloring. Yellow optics was a bright silvery color that reminded her of steel, while orange optics was darker like iron.

"Iron and Steel." She decided with no small amount of satisfaction. Who cared if the names weren't the most original in the world. They sounded right to her and since the little guys didn't seem to protest, she was fairly happy.

Steel rose up on his tiny back legs to chirp softly with an almost inquisitive note. Iron seconded him, but Coal seemed perfectly content to keep on chewing Iron's wing. "I'm guessing that means you're hungry?" She narrowed her eyes at the three speculatively, calculating her odds of being able to go all the way to town without them tearing her house apart in the meantime...

They weren't good odds. She had to suppose her odds of winning the lottery were significantly better.

Her only other options were outside in the snow- something she wouldn't do to the poor, adorable things or to leave them in her running car while she shopped. Also not happening.

Which left surprise option number four. Take them shopping. She winced.

Oooh yeah, that was a fun idea. She could just imagine the sort of chaos sneaking the three into Wal-Mart would entail. Screaming, fires, and general chaos her all too eager imagination supplied.

Yep. All kinds of fun.

She crouched down and opened her arms to the little guys. All three chirped curiously, but none of them ventured any closer. "Come see Momma Nicky," she crooned and wiggled her fingers enticingly.

The three eyed her from the top of the bed with no small amount of suspicion.

Coal finally let go of Iron and moved closer on all fours. All four red optics were locked with intense focus on her wiggling fingers and it took everything she had to not pull away as he swatted at her fingers with his claws. "That's a good boy," she said with no small amount of certainty herself. She made a point of watching those sharp teeth and claws as she cautiously stretched out her free hand and petted the very top of his head.

He froze completely at her touch. The look on his rudimentary little face could have been shock, but it was absolutely adorable. She rubbed the sharp points on the top of Coal's head with a fingertip and after a moment a soft repetitive crooning purr escaped the little scrapper.

She smiled as she settled down cross-legged, still rubbing. Steel and Iron edged closer, rearing up to see what she was doing. Coal flopped on his side and wiggled until he was on his back, squealing softly as he grabbed at her fingers. She tentatively picked him up and transferred him to her lap.

She was so engrossed in playing with Coal, she almost forgot about the other two until Steel chirped and nudged her arm aside with his head, before flaring out his tiny wings and pouncing into her lap. She barely managed not to jerk away in surprise. He pulled himself up by digging his claws into her shirt to make little sniffing sounds at her face. She held still, tolerating his interest until he snuffed his satisfaction and flopped in her lap to sprawl. She turned her head to see Iron had jumped off the bed too, but was still lingering just out of reach by her knee.

The little guy looked almost torn as he eyed the other two, then her. "Want to play too, Iron?" She cooed at him and he huffed, dropping onto all fours to circle her with the little blade-like wings on his back flared out. "I don't bite."

His orange optics squinted suspiciously at her words, before he paused to nip at her offered fingers. She scowled. "Meany." She eyed the other more docile scrappers. "Who wants to go for a car ride?"

* * *

><p>They didn't particularly mind being put inside the car on the whole, though Iron loudly warbled in protest at being carried from the nice warm house through the snow to her car. Getting all three inside the car proved to be a slight challenge. The three decided that they were playing some new type of game and every time the car door was opened to place one inside, the others would make a break for the outside while chirping maniacally.<p>

The words 'stay,' 'bad,' and 'no' didn't seem to phase them either.

But Nicky eventually managed to get all three into the backseat of her beat up little Nissan. They shrilled at her as she slid into the driver's seat, before exploring the backseat with little snuffling sounds and chirps.

The sound of the car starting coaxed sharp squeals of fear from Steel and indignant sounding warbles from Iron and Coal. Putting the car into gear only made them vocalize louder, as they wobbled and fell onto all fours on the seat.

She spared a glance at them, and it was all too easy to see the wary alarm in the roundness of their glowing optics. "It's okay." Her foot eased onto the break as she maneuvered her car along the icy gravel with soft crunches. "This'll be fun." She wasn't quite sure who she was trying to convince- them or herself.

A trio of unhappy whines came from the backseat.

* * *

><p>Feeling delightfully bad, Nicky dragged a shopping cart from its corral toward her car. She gripped the handle of the backdoor and yanked it open carefully after checking to make sure none of the three were close enough to fall out.<p>

Iron squinted at her from his perch against the opposite door. Steel and Coal warbled quietly, their bodies almost blending together as they curled up in the middle of the seat. So cute, she thought with a smile. She leaned into the car to retrieve Steel, ignoring Coal's annoyed chirp to place Steel in the cart. He made his own displeased sound at touching the cold metal, but she ignored him to reach back in and pull out Coal.

Iron's little metal panels flared out in annoyance as he made a mad scramble to dive into the floorboard and under the seat. "Oh no, you don't." She lunged after him and managed to grab him around the middle to drag him out. He shrieked loudly, claws flailing and hissed at her.

She scowled as she noticed what he'd done to her car on the ride over. Tiny little claws could do a surprising amount of damage to cloth upholstery. She gritted her teeth as she gently added Iron to the cart. She stared at the deep shreds on her car seats and grimaced. Not so cute.

She turned her glare on the three as they awkwardly tried to stand in the cart. All three looked unrepentant and as irritated with her as she felt with them at the moment. Sighing, she pulled off her jacket and dumped it over the three. "Don't claw that, please," she muttered angrily as the three wriggled around for a moment before settling down.

All she had to do was grab a few packages of batteries for her little scrappers…. She could handle that.

She eyed the scrappers as they cuddled together under the jacket. She was hopeful they would just behave and sleep while she shopped.

She headed inside the store, nervously smiling at the door greeter. She headed straight for the front and the big rack of batteries. One of the scrappers snuffled softly, but otherwise they stayed quiet. She started pulling handfuls of battery packs off of the rack, placing them in the top of the cart. Another scrapper chirped softly.

"Please, stay quiet," she murmured under her breath as she grabbed even more batteries and frantically headed for the check-out. She loaded the batteries onto the belt, trying to ignore the curious look the clerk was shooting at her. His eyes lingered on her jacket, but he didn't say anything.

She fidgeted impatiently as he scanned her purchase and she paid. He glanced at her jacket again, probably noting that it looked lumpy. She smiled frantically as she snatched her receipt and fled for the door.

"Ma'am, if I could speak with you?"

Nicky frowned and looked up at the big man who'd stepped into her path. He was nicer dressed than the other employees and he didn't look happy. She hesitated, before plastering a smile onto her face. "Can I help you?"

He shot a pointed look at her cart and more specifically her lumpy jacket that was hiding the scrappers. She felt her pulse jump as she licked her lips.

"Ma'am, could you please show me your receipt?"

She fumbled with her purse, before remembering it was in her pocket and she offered it to him. The insane urge to just grab the cart and run like all hell surged through her. She was all too aware of the people openly staring and their curious or pitying expressions.

"Could you remove your jacket, ma'am?" He asked, holding the receipt that he hadn't even glanced at in his hand still.

_Run, run, run_, her brain wailed. She reached to carefully grip the sleeve of the jacket, but hesitated. What would happen if he saw the little scrappers? Nightmare scenarios flipped through her brain as she locked her trembling knees together. Alien autopsies and cover-ups played through her head. Her bottom lip trembled as she imagined some government scientists cutting apart the scrappers to see what made them tick.

"Ma'am?"

She lunged for the handle of the cart and tried to run.

The security guy wasn't having any of it, though. She shrieked as he grabbed her arm. She did the only thing she could think of- she flailed her purse at him, screaming at the top of her lungs.

"HELP! I NEED AN ADULT!"

The man wrestled with her, trying to get her under control. "Ma'am, stop resisting." He snarled, as he tried to get her stop hitting him with her purse and she just kept crazily flailing her purse at him.

The noise woke up the scrappers.

Nicky was only dimly aware of what happened next. Everything became so much chaos as Iron lurched out from under the jacket and pounced on the side of the cart, hissing and showing his sharp little teeth in anger.

The security guide cursed, letting go of her to shove away from the hissing scrapper. Nicky slammed into the cart and shoved it at the door as someone else screamed. She plowed into the automatic door when it didn't open quickly enough, but she managed to slam the cart through the narrow gap and ran for her car with it.

Steel and Coal squealed loudly as the cart bounced through the parking lot and her shoes scrabbled on the melted snow and ice. "Oh shit… oh shit… oh shit…" She panted as she fumbled for her keys, dropped her purse, grabbed her purse, found her keys, hit the panic alarm by accident, and finally managed to unlock the door.

By the time she'd shoved her grocery bags into the backseat along with the scrappers, they were all wailing their distress and she wanted to bawl herself. She shoved the cart away as she dived into driver's seat and started the car. A glance revealed a few people had emerged to stare at her by the door. No one was chasing her, but damn if she didn't flee like they were.

Her tires squealed as she drove far too fast through the parking lot and cut off another car, careening onto the road. She hunched herself over the wheel as she sped for home, her heart pounding so hard in her chest she thought she'd have a heart attack.

* * *

><p>"Why is it that you cannot seem to do anything right?"<p>

Skywarp hid his wince as the all-too familiar and unwelcome voice of Starscream filled his quarters. He bit back a hiss of annoyance as his wing panels pulled closer to his body and the instinctive urge to simply 'port away from the perceived threat surfaced. His optics narrowed as he turned to face his superior.

Starscream was much the same as he'd been when they'd met as sparklings. He was still smaller-framed than Skywarp and shriller. Uppity little glitched son of a malfunctioning slag-heap. He huffed through his vents as he narrowly watched Starscream circle him.

The long lines of his face were pulled down with disapproval, making the expression look comically exaggerated. Not that Skywarp was about to point that out. He could do without being smacked by one of his trine.

"Mind telling me exactly what I did this time?" Skywarp rumbled softly, his own voice a much deeper bass growl.

Starscream sighed and Skywarp felt his annoyance double. The glitch had always had a flare for the dramatic and it had quickly gone from amusing to just downright obnoxious. Starscream was the kind of mech you just instinctively needed to beat the slag out of.

"I just counted the sparklings… three are missing. I can't help but believe that _you_ lost them in transit," Starscream drawled slowly as he paused to inspect a data-pad on Skywarp's desk.

Skywarp bristled and couldn't help the angry growl that escaped him. "What?"

Starscream perused his personal files for a moment. "You lost three sparklings. Do you have any concept how… displeased our_ esteemed_ leader will be?" Starscream dismissively tossed the data-pad onto Skywarp's berth with a flick of his wrist. "And I'll be responsible, of course for your failure."

"Well, then. Sucks to be you." Skywarp turned away with an agitated huff through his vents. He tried to brush past his leader, but Starscream seized him by a wing panel.

Skywarp went rigid, before he rounded on Starscream with an angry hiss of outrage, his optics brightening dangerously. "I'd let go, Screamer."

Starscream snarled softly, refusing to back down. "Don't call me that." He gave Skywarp a shove then straightened to his less than imposing height. With his back to the sporadic glow-panels set into the high ceiling of Skywarp's quarters, the shadows on Starscream's face stretched and deepened to give his commander's angular features a sinister slant. "You are going to find and recover those sparklings."

"I am, am I?" Skywarp rolled his shoulders, feeling mechanisms whirr and settle with a satisfying rev. He gave a nonchalant huff through his vents, as if he was unbothered that Starscream was in his fragging quarters and invading his space. "Doesn't sound like something I'd do."

Optics narrowing until Skywarp couldn't see how Starscream could even see him, his wing commander glowered at him. "You'll do this for me or I'll tell Megatron who really downloaded that virus into his personal terminal."

Skywarp huffed softly, his lips quirking to flash his sharp dental plating. "Then I suppose I have work to do." He considered the looping path he'd taken across this miserable squishy planet with the sparklings. He'd stopped sporadically, back-tracking, and bouncing around to keep the Autobot's off his aft. He supposed it was possible he'd accidentally lost a few along the way. He sighed through his vents. He winked an optic at Starscream just to annoy him and then he did what he did second best.

He teleported.


End file.
